Friday, September 14, 2007

USANA faces fourth lawsuit

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

A shareholder has filed a fourth lawsuit in federal court in Utah against Usana Health Sciences based on allegations the publicly traded company is operating an unsustainable pyramid scheme.

Robert Keith Larson alleges that the board of directors and executives touted the company as highly successful with solid earnings and a successful business model. But a story in The Wall Street Journal revealed “the underlying unsustainability of the company’s business model and the company was in fact perpetrating a ‘pyramid scheme’ in an attempt to sell its products,” according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday. That story and a subsequent one at Forbes.com were based on the work of Barry Minkow, an investigator who spent time in prison for securities and tax fraud but now runs a business known as the Fraud Discovery Institute.

Three other lawsuits against Usana are pending in U.S. District Court for Utah based on Minkow’s investigation….

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